Elton John Explaining What's Going On

Saturday night, I went to see Elton John. Ok, technically it was Elton John and Leon Russell (I know, right? I had to google him too), but my lack of sleep that entire week left me comatose throughout much of Leon Russell (see how I blame lack of sleep instead of the artist's music?). Of course, the unmistakable accent of a knighted Brit caught my ear and woke me up when necessary.

Elton John is a performer. I don't know how old he is - and I don't want to know because I'd feel sad, I think - but he was just how you'd imagine him to be, rocking away on the ivories from behind his iconic round glasses.

Lately, I've heard from people who go to big-name acts that they "just don't play their hits anymore." Obviously if you've been touring for 40 years, you're tired of playing your singles, so I was worried that Elton John would brush off Tiny Dancer for something new that sounded like a cross between Cold Play and Kings of Leon with a touch of Owl City.

The lights went down and out walked Elton John. The first thing he said was, "So I'm going to explain to you what's going to happen tonight." Oh this is going to be excellent. He's already acknowledging the audience exists! He continued, "I'm going to play some songs, then Leon's going to play some songs, then we're going to play some songs together, then I'm going to play some more songs!"

The crowd went crazy, and Elton went on. "And I know you all want to hear the hits, and there will be plenty of those, trust me..." Thank you, Jesus! "And we've even got some new stuff that's in the top 10 on some charts so I think that'll be okay too." I admire the guy for trying to put us at ease about that no-good new stuff that nobody really wants to hear. And for answering our collective question of "Will you play the hits?" and not making us wait until the encore to find out that no, he won't.

And on that note, he busted out with "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting." Perfect way to kick off the night.

The man gets it. There's no bullshitting. He knows why he's here. He knows his job is not to sell new shit but to play Your Song. He's been doing this long enough to know that people paid hundreds of dollars to sit in a freezing cold (seriously arctic blasts were blowing past me) convention center to see him play a potential set list of songs they may not even know, and if that's not enough, they have to also hear some retired cowboy with long white hair and a cane play dueling pianos with a British superstar.

Elton John played for over three hours. Leon Russell probably played for about 25 minutes of that. Elton played all the hits. All of them. Just when you thought he was done and for sure this was the last song, along came another you forgot about. And when he finally went off stage, he returned to do an encore of three more songs. I mean, the guy has to love doing this.

Makes you think that other so-called rock stars could learn a little something from Sir Elton John.